Explore "Robin Linnet" by E.F. Benson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
As suddenly as the first wave from the wash of a great liner breaking on the shore of a tranquil sea, a billow of utter loneliness reared itself up and thundered over Helen Grote. It came without warning, for she had not been looking seawards.
Robin had just left her with a very troubled face, but with his determination absolutely unshaken. On the morning after the declaration of war he had come straight up to town from Cambridge, and had been given a commission in the Grenadier Guards. That had met with her entire approval, she loved to think that her son had been among the very first to answer to the call, even anticipating it. Then she had done her part, and had got a promise for him of a staff appointment, which implied useful and necessary work, would give scope to his excellent abilities, and, above all, would not plunge him after a few months of training into the fiery hell, which, having by now burned its way almost within gun-range of Paris, had at length been stayed, and the edges of it turned back upon itself.